Mesothelioma Treatments And Their Efficacy

The stage of cancer at the time of detection plays an important role in the success of mesothelioma treatments. Both traditional and modern methods are used by the doctors according to their discretion. Surgery, medications like chemotherapy and radiation are examples of conventional therapies used by physicians. They may use two or three of these techniques combined also if the situation demands so. As a result of treatment more than two-thirds of stage-1 and stage-2 mesothelioma patients are enabled to get their lives extended by five or more years. Surgery has also helped the patients in the same manner on an average of sixteen percent of all the cases.

Surgical procedure involves removing the cancerous growth through incisions. Decortication or pleurectomy is the commonly used surgery in which the removal of chest lining is done. The surgery which removes the lining around the lungs, inside the chest, the hemi-diaphragm and pericardium is called the Extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP). This kind of surgery is not widely used.

In spite of all its side effects, chemotherapy has proved to be the best of all the present mesothelioma treatments imparted. It is a less aggressive treatment than radiation or surgery. The process is usually long drawn out, physically and emotionally difficult for the affected.

Immunotherapy, which strives to improve the immune response, has yielded vacillating results so far. Heated Intraoperative Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy, in which drugs are heated to a certain degree of temperature before being administered, helps improved penetration of anti-cancer drugs. Researches are on to find alternative and more effective mesothelioma treatments.

There are certain factors to be taken into account before actually starting the treatment process. They are the age of the patient, the level of the disease and his overall health. Also the patient should be given sufficient opportunities to find the most appropriate treatment, its advantages and disadvantages, the cost involved, risk factors and the chances of cure. These days palliative treatment, which treats the symptoms not the causes, is also becoming popular. This method is opted where aggressive mesothelioma treatments are impossible.